A buddy of mine from Russia referred me to Mud (Кал). Mud is a short Bulgarian film released in 1997. Despite being made quite recently, the director decided to use a color filter that presents the whole film in dim colors. It focuses on the short (but pure) friendship between a foreign tourist and a gypsy boy. The foreigner witnesses the young boy robbing a store and he starts chasing him…
When the chase is over and the boy is caught, in his struggle to get away he manages to seriously injure the foreign tourist…
The movie is very realistic – but at the same time I feel the director could have conveyed his message in less time that 24 minutes. There is some symbolism – mainly a teddy bear that shows that despite the harsh live the gypsy boy is still a kid and birds that are used as a metaphor of death.
The entire movie could be seen online absolutely for free at its IMDB page. Leave me comments with your impressions when you see it.
Plot description in Russian :
Описание: Короткий фильм о необычной но чистой дружбе между иностранным посетителем Болгарии и цыганским мальчиком. Иностранец случайно вовлечен в преследование цыганского вора, который наносит ему смертельный удар с ножом.Тогда обстоятельства вынуждают эти двух врагов остаться вместе некоторое время и постепенно они становятся друзьями. В конце мужчина умирает из-за его раны. В конце мужчина умирает из-за его раны.
Mud is definitely an odd piece of cinema . I did not like it that much – despite its” surrealistic ” atmosphere – or may be because of it. One of the things I noticed about it – is that it showed how everyone is pretty much preoccupied with his own things – like the girls that was in the store – she saw the foreigner hurt – but did not attempt to help him, then a man looks trough the door seeing the boy and the man ” fighting ” – but then he just keeps walking.
I would love to hear the director`s own opinion – and hopefully he will stumble on this blog and will let us know what were his ideas. It is not a precedent at my blog – so he is welcome to do it. And so are all of you who have seen this short movie
I´ve just watched this short Bulgarian film. The first thing you think of is the “filter” that is used with the camera, making it a bit surrealistic, and in this film I like that a lot. Otherwise I found the story a bit strange, with the boy trying to help his victim by his own. But I guess the message here is that even children who are living in these bad conditions, like in the street, still are children, act like children and think like children. No matter what harsch circumstances you have to deal with. You sometimes say that some children are forced to grow up quickly, meaning that they aren´t allowed to have a fun childhood where they can play and that they early in life have to take the same responsibilities like adults, like supporting themselves, find food and so on. But, in this film you can see that some children don´t actually “grow up” more quickly than other children. They are just deprived of their right to be happy children.